Escape Velocity: The Anthology (4 page)

      
Allen’s stare changed into a look of desperation. “These galeapers are killing innocent people, Molly. You need to leave town as fast as you can.”

       “
They can’t be after me. I didn’t do anything.”

       “
They
will
be after you, because you know about them.”

 “
I don’t get it. This Dunn character killed a man and now some strange little aliens are—”

       “
Banger didn’t kill anyone. Farber did.”

       “
Who the heck’s Farber?”

      
There was no sense explaining anything to Allen. It would take too long. One thing was clear: She must warn Banger about the galeaper threat, if he didn’t already know. She knelt and held Allen’s arm. He was shaking.

       “
Funny thing though,” he said, “I confused it when I took off my coat, and when I put on that yellow wig someone left behind at the precinct’s Halloween party, it didn’t recognize me, like our clothes and the color of our hair is how they identify us.”

      
Molly released her grip on Allen and rose to her feet. Her head throbbed, and for a moment she was sure she was about to throw up. As she stood there, her eyes lingering on the jacket, she realized things were different now. She had come to work that morning expecting to get a classic, gutter-nurtured client, but instead — Banger. And now weird aliens with a warped sense of humanity were hunting her down. Oddly, she felt a slight thrill.

       “
I better go,” she said. “What about Jekkie Lane’s murder?”

       “
Don’t worry,” Allen replied. “I’ll make it look like he was framed.”

It didn’t take long for Banger to make melding-blast and fill syringes and laboratory flasks with the green iridescent liquid. Weapons. The syringe — Farber’s idea. Using flasks — his. The mixing of the liquid with human blood catalyzed the cell-changing reaction. Ejected from a melding gun, the liquid would penetrate clothes and pierce the skin. But making a melding gun was time consuming, and the things were too bulky. For now, his weapons would only work at very close range.

      
Banger placed the weapons into an insulated lunch bag then removed his rubber gloves, which he tossed into the microwave along with the other items he had been using. He set the power on high and zapped any traces of melding-blast.

      
He glanced at his watch. He had better hurry to meet Molly and the others. She had called earlier. Then Percy left to assemble his gang and any others who knew of the galeapers’ existence.

      
Banger wanted to stay in Graveton and fight the galeapers there. But Molly and Percy had convinced him they should all leave town and formulate a good plan.

      
With the lunch bag’s strap draped across his chest and a backpack around his shoulders, Banger arrived at the tram station ten minutes ahead of schedule. Through the dim lights, he studied shadowy faces near him.
Humans, all of them.
But he had nothing to worry about, because galeapers didn’t work at night.

      
A cold sense of loss spiked through him as visions of Farber invaded his thoughts. In all the years he had been studying black holes; never had he thought his quest would lead to the little guy. Finding Farber had been a great scientific achievement, one he must conceal forever, and because of it, he might spend the rest of his life running.

      
Regrets? Not really. Not yet. After all, he had saved humanity.

      
Finally, the tram arrived. Banger entered and dropped a token into the metal depository. A rush of heat greeted him. Then he noticed the galeaper sitting in the back seat.

      
Banger stopped dead, holding onto the ceiling rail as the tram took off. The crater in his stomach grew wider, and he stared at the galeaper, perhaps the one who had chased him in the drudge. Still wore a tan jacket. Orange hair. A face like lumpy mashed potatoes with the skins left on. He, or someone else, had done a number on this galeaper.

      
Odd as the galeaper looked, why would anyone suspect he wasn’t human?

      
Banger pulled out a syringe from the lunch bag, uncapped it, and walked toward the galeaper. This inhumane creature had seen his last day on Earth. He reached the back of the tram and peered down at the galeaper, almost feeling sorry for the dejected little thing: nowhere to go, out of work; just like him. The galeaper looked at the syringe, then at Banger, his black eyes piercing through Banger, the way Farber’s eyes had. Banger detected a slight discolored wrinkle between the little guy’s eyes, as if he were in great pain.

      
Banger reminded himself why the galeapers came to Earth. Inhumane. But Farber had been Banger’s friend, and Farber
was
humane, he just had had a strange political agenda. It was clear to Banger that the galeaper before him now had missed its target and would never try to harm a human again. Banger decided to spare him. The little guy would be dead soon anyway, and Banger had many questions to ask him before that happened.

      
He recapped the syringe and tucked it back inside his lunch bag. Then he removed his backpack, sat beside the galeaper, and pulled him close. Banger thought he heard him cry, the way Farber once had done.

      
The tram stopped in the drudge and Banger escorted the battered exile off. As they emerged from the station, he spotted Percy and his orange-haired gang and a few other undesirables lingering beneath a street lamp. Upon seeing Banger, they pointed glossy weapons at the galeaper tucked under his arm.

      
Banger shielded the galeaper. “No,” he said. “He’s harmless now. We’re going to ask him a few questions.”

      
Banger searched the group as they lowered the weapons, looking for Molly. A large, dark-skinned Asian man with a bright smile stepped in front of him. Molly appeared from behind the Asian man, and Banger’s heart soared. For a moment he had thought that the galeapers had got to her. But she was safe, and he hoped she brought the hair dye, because it was time to end the war.

Zuggyzu and the Humans

Sheila Crosby

“
No. Absolutely not! It's far too dangerous.” The Controller threw Zuggyzu's report in the recycling bin. Zuggyzu's spots turned black with disappointment. “It's not that dangerous, sir. The air's breathable, the gravity's weak.”

       “
And the dominant species are blundering giants who could squash you flat and not even notice. Half the exploration team vanished, and yet you say it’s not that dangerous?”

       “
We've learnt so much since then! I can disguise myself, sir. I understand humans. It's easy to fool them because they only see what they expect to see.”

       “
You're obsessed, Zuggyzu. I'm sending you on compulsory leave before you become as irrational as those humans.”

       “
But, sir! They're destroying their planet.”

       “
I want your leave application on my desk in fifteen minutes.”

      
Zuggyzu trailed along the null-grav strip back to his perch. Humans fascinated him. He was amazed by their family units, their loyalty to one another; and the democracy thing. Now, if his kind had democracy, he could appeal when the Controller told him where to go. The idea hit him so hard that he crashed to the floor and bruised one of his corners. The Controller hadn't told him where to take his leave. His spots pulsated with scarlet determination.

The sun was setting as Zuggyzu landed in the Canary Islands. He could see two humans pointing up at the sky. No doubt they thought the lens shaped cloud was a flying saucer. Didn't they know that this hill constantly formed such clouds? It was so easy to fool humans.

      
He hid the spaceship with vegetation, and unloaded his planet-rover. He had morphed it, and now it should be well disguised on Earth. He was right. The lovers were so mesmerised by the cloud, they never noticed the battered soda can rolling past their feet. Zuggyzu headed for the observatory, which was perched on top of the island's highest mountain. If anyone could understand his message, it would be astronomers.

Pedro opened the dome of the William Herschel Telescope and gazed at the perfect royal blue sky. If only it would cloud over so he could go to bed early! After four years of operating telescopes for the English, the glamour had worn thin. Still, another year of it, and he could buy his girlfriend a cow. She'd like that. They agreed that agriculture didn't pay as well as science, but it was a lot saner.

      
The night's observers arrived. “Sorry we're late,” said the man with a pink pony-tail and wrinkles. “I'm Dr. Kaz Reid. This is my student, Anne Grey.”

      
Pedro shook hands, trying not to stare at Dr. Reid's
Legalise Cannabis
T-shirt and psychedelic trousers. Most observers came for just three nights, and many had their heads in space, but this was the first time he'd seen one with his body stuck in the sixties.

       “
I am Pedro. The telescope will be ready when I fill the cryostat.”

       “
Cool. I'll leave Anne with you while I find the staff astronomer.” Dr. Reid waved and vanished. Visiting astronomers were supposed to arrive by 4pm. Pedro shrugged. It wasn't his problem. He started down the stairs. “Your first time here?”

      
Anne nodded. “It's much bigger than I expected.”

       “
Everyone says that.” It was one thing to read that the telescope was eighty feet high, and another to see it. They reached the observing floor, and Pedro pulled the tank of liquid nitrogen the last few yards.

       “
It looks like R2D2,” said Anne.

      
Pedro smiled. “Not so clever.” He slid the nozzle into the cryostat and opened the valves. The tube furred with frost, fog tumbled and rippled over the floor, and finally liquid nitrogen spat out. “Finished,” said Pedro.

      
He turned off the valves, removed the probe, and released the pressure. A yard of fog roared sideways, like a dragon's sigh.

       “
I'm cold,” said Anne.

       “
Yes. Is nice you don't have to sit in here looking through an eyepiece. Is much warmer in the control room, no?”

      
Anne smiled. Her strawberry blond hair and twitchy movements reminded Pedro irresistibly of a hamster. He'd hoped she'd be as nocturnal as a hamster too. They were supposed to work all night, but sometimes the astronomers snored. As they went through to the control room, Pedro saw something fly into the dome. Odd. None of the local birds flew at night. He must have imagined it.

Zuggyzu shut his eyes as he flew into the dome in his pop can, fifty feet above the ground. He told himself these vast heights didn't count on a low-gravity planet; it was the thin air that made him dizzy. He flew down to the metal boxes hanging below the main mirror, and turned on his echo sounder. It all made sense. The collected light went through a maze of mirrors and lenses to produce an image, like a photo. He thought it seemed a bit primitive for such a huge telescope. The light detector was cooled by liquid nitrogen, for goodness sake, and it was a mere inch across! He saw they still converted the light into electricity like an antique digital camera. Maybe building an eighty-foot high telescope wasn't so remarkable when you were six feet tall yourself, and the gravity was only 9.8m/s. This giant could barely spot a candle on their moon!

      
Zuggyzu's heart sank. If humans were stupid then his plan wasn't likely to work. But he'd come too far to give up. He'd get more data and improvise. A hundred and sixty tons of telescope swooped ‘round, sending Zuggyzu scurrying. The vast dome rotated to align the open shutter with the telescope. Everything was moving, and without a fixed frame of reference, Zuggyzu felt giddy.

      
When the telescope settled down, Zuggyzu flew back to the instruments and continued his investigation. Those wires leading from the detectors must go to whatever passed for a computer in this backwater. With such primitive detectors, they might even store their data on magnetic tape.

Dr. Reid bounded into the control room. “Ready?”

      
Pedro sighed. All this enthusiasm was tiring. “I finish the calibrate now. What is your first object?”

      
Anne handed him a list. “This one. Then we do a blind offset to our colliding galaxies.”

      
Pedro typed co-ordinates into the computer. Soon the telescope was tracking the galaxies across the sky, as the Earth turned on its axis.

      
Dr. Reid typed busily into the instrument control computer. “We'll take a one hour exposure. Right, what shall we talk about while we're waiting?”  

      
Anne said, “While we were coming up the mountain, the taxi driver told us that aliens visit the observatory all the time.”

      
Pedro nodded. “Montana Matos down in Garafia, it makes clouds formed like a lens. People think they are flying saucers.”

      
Dr. Reid raised His eyebrows in mock astonishment. “You mean it's not true? Shame!”

      
Pedro smiled.
I wonder which planet you come from
, he thought.

      
Dr. Reid put a Beatles CD in the stereo unit.